It’s out. After a year or so in the writing, and about a decade in development, I’ve finally got some stuff out of my brain and into what I can only describe as a book.

It’s out. After a year or so in the writing, and about a decade in development, I’ve finally got some stuff out of my brain and into what I can only describe as a book.

Though I started my career in technology, for a while now I’ve been leading and consulting with companies to help individuals and teams perform better. You see technology can move really fast, but the limiting factor on how organisations can accelerate isn’t how much tech they can use, it’s how their people grow. Get that wrong, and it all blows up in your face. Yes, I am talking about you Uber, but I’m also talking about you my dear reader.

As the world gets faster, can you keep up? I only can by careful thinking and flexible planning, but when I get those right, great things can happen.

For me, getting these materials I’ve shared personally with many of you into book form was one of those great achievements, but I’m not done yet. In fact I’ve barely started. Here comes the hard part – I would like to know whether the book’s any good!

And that’s where you come in. If you are able to spare a little time to cast an eye over my work, I’d love to send you the book in PDF form and then have you share your thoughts with me. You could do this via an amazon review (if they’re nice thoughts!) or directly on email (if they are more in the line of constructive feedback – so that I can improve it).

I’ve just heard Daniel Priestley speak about his book that shows how you can use books as an opportunity to speak to prospects … now I have a headache …

Yesterday I got a headache. A really bad one, and I missed the second half of a very interesting day with the guys from Dent.

What interested me about the day was that it addressed a concern that I have in common with many entrepreneurs and small business leaders – that of growth – in particular, the right kind of marketing that leads to sustainable and positive growth for a business.

In their “Key person of influence” programme, Daniel Priestley has pulled together a very interesting set of activities which many entrepreneurs will already be aware of (if not already doing) but does so within a framework where they become aligned with the growth of the business itself.

This is important because most entrepreneurs don’t just do one thing. Even if you’re working on one project or company NOW, that’s not the only thing you’ll ever do, and so you want the successes that you achieve to count both for your company (so that you can sell it or otherwise exit saying “look what I’ve done”) but also count for you personally so that your CV clearly shows your successful track record in building success.

I really like Daniel’s approach to this which is outlined in his self-published-“Key Person of Influence” for the simple reason that it highlights how you can do this kind of profile raising in a way that benefits both your current business and your own future career. By aligning these powerful motivations, Daniel shows how this kind of activity can deliver maximum bang per buck.

Now talking of bang, back to the headache…

Because what Daniel was talking about in the talk that I went to after reading his book, was how to make your business successful by writing a book and then offering other content like events which you can bring people to … at which point it’s no wonder that I got a headache.

“Crush It” by Gary Vaynerchuk is both an instruction book and a great example of the importance of personal brand in the modern working environment. Part polemic and part instruction manual it looks at the ideas of branding through the lens of an entrepreneur – either someone starting and building a business, or someone working in an existing business and working to build their own brand in order to advance their career.

The main point:

Gary’s main point is that regardless of your role, your field, your interests, you need to start building up assets and activities around your own personal brand and connecting with a community of people who are relevant to the things you care about.

Gary then goes on to work through various case studies, all from his own life of how he’s achieved this and the sort of assets he’s built – blog content, a video channel and an online store, and does a great job of enthusing the reader. He also has a section in the back which breaks the process down into more of a to-do list so that the reader can work through it and give this a go.

What’s good about it?

Gary does a great job of showing how your personal brand can co-exist alongside your work persona (when you’re in a business and working on a side project that you ultimately want to grow) as well as when you want to build a personal brand _around_ your work persona.

The examples that he gives are good and solid, well described and supported by numbers, and he managed to persuade my rather sceptical brain to his way of thinking on several of his key points.

He acknowledges and does his best to work through the inherent contradictions which are present in branding: monetization vs authentic, family time vs work time etc.

What’s bad about it?

While acknowledging contradictory pressures, I was left with the impression that I have to “do both” – for example – make sure that I spend a good amount of time with my family “quote” AND put in hours after dark month after month, year after year, before results come along. I think this kind of expectation is pretty off-putting and I was certainly left thinking that “I wouldn’t do it like that”

Gary’s examples are almost all repetitions of a few key things in his own life. I would have liked to hear more about the other folks that he mentions in passing or that he says he talks to in his various social channels. I was left thinking that this was more of a “how I did it” than a “how to do it” kind of book.

The tools and techniques that he names in the book are very dated indeed – some have ceased to exist, others that you would expect to see aren’t there at all. Linkedin, for example, is not covered, which is a massive oversight in a book covering professional brand – definitely time for an update.

Finally the style. Gary is very enthusiastic. Whilst his editor has done a good job with making his prose readable in the written edition, the audio edition of this – narrated by the author – frequently goes off script and riffs on a particular idea. Sometimes this fills in a useful omission (like Linkedin, for example) but more often it just repeats what has already been said in a less coherent way).

Should you read it?

Yes. If a very American “in your face” style is off-putting, check it out before you buy it, but if you can get over that, it’s worth it. It’s short enough to grit your teeth and push through, and there are some very good insights to be had by the reader, not least as a practical example of how to do the thing that you’re evangelising about.

Do you need to ask an external company how you are supporting your customers? If so, that’s a good indicator that you may be doing it wrong.

It’s a principle of agile that an organisation is best when motivated people work on something together – face to face. But it’s a principle that’s routinely ignored when it comes to working with customers – and by organisations which should know better. Last week I participated in a “short survey” about a particular product, not because I had a particular desire to share my thoughts with the company concerned, but because they were offering free money (well, an Amazon voucher).

One of the questions was: “You recently engaged with one of our customer services operatives. How effectively did they resolve your query?”. Apart from the complete blandness of this question, something struck me.

Don’t they know?

I had the same experience with BT a few years ago, this was before the widespread adoption of cable TV contracts with phone connections and when BT was the monopoly provider of all domestic telephone lines, and the BT customer survey person asked “how many phones do you have in your house?”

In both cases, we can tell two really alarming things about these companies when we this sort of question.

They can’t or won’t look up this information themselves (in both cases their internal systems should have the answer)

They don’t trust their own staff to do their job right.

The staff who deal with customers know whether they did a good job, and they know whether the customer was happy at the end of it. So why on earth engage external companies to ask these stupid questions?

So here’s the takeaway.

If you feel like you need to ask an external firm to see whether you have a problem with how your front line staff handle customers, then you know that you have a problem with how your front line staff handle customers.

The problem may be that they don’t do it well, or that you don’t trust them, but either way, that’s a pretty big problem, because today, if you’re cut off from your customers, you will be killed off pretty quickly by an organisation that understands them and connects with them as a grown-up.

I was in London yesterday. Far away from the events of Parliament square but close enough to see the change in people. I got the sense of admiration for our police officers and medical professionals, I got the sense of admiration for our politicians showing some rare grace under pressure, and I got the sense that London is united and defiant.

So all of that was enough to get me thinking about my own values, mainly because when I look at them every morning it feels like they are really important, and then an event like yesterday brings it home to me that many many other people share those values and we’re all trying to do better every day.

But values are the kind of thing that don’t come easily. It’s hard to work out what they are, and it’s hard to stay mindful of them – it’s easy to get swept along by chatter, and by busyness and by the pressure to fit in.

For me, the very first thing that I do in the morning – OK, after putting the coffee on – is to just remind my brain of what I am all about. It’s half meditation, half pep talk, and half basic instructions to get my brain to start the day.

I started this habit because I realised that when I’d had a really good day, getting stuff done, thinking about what was important and generally enjoying life, I’d go to bed with a really crisp and clear idea of my place in the world, my purpose and what life was all about. But then the following morning, I’d wake up and all I could remember was where the coffee was, and sometimes I even needed help with that. I needed a way for my sorted thoughtful brain to communicate with the very different fog-filled coffee-deprived brain that it became eight hours later, so that’s when I started working on a morning mantra.

It has changed a lot, but and I review it every few months, I’ve done it as a written list, a keynote document (think picture book rather than corporate presentation) and even a video but one thing that I have found common to all of those is that it always tends to contain the following six things. Sometimes these are so short they’re covered in a comment of phrase, sometimes a whole page, but they’re always there one way or another. I share them in the hope that you might find some value in starting your day this way.

Statement of Values. This is a reminder of who I am. Through the day I am assaulted by the world – tempted this way and that – so reminding myself of my values first thing helps me to avoid getting to the end of the day and thinking “why did I do THAT?!”

Statement of Purpose. This sounds like a corporate mission statement, but it’s not. For me being my best self, being healthy, wealthy and wise have a very specific look and feel, and I guess they might for you too. Stating this purpose at the start of each day reminds me of where I’m heading.

Statement of Why. The purpose is great, but when things get tough it is tempting to settle for a limited win or even defeat and hope to fight another day. For me, the question of “why?” gets me back on track when things get tough and I am tempted to slack off (for a good example see the link at the bottom)

Some inspiration. I’m not a poet or a great writer, but I value those who are, and they can really help me to start the day. For me nothing beats Kipling’s “If”, and I have a lovely audio reading of this by Michael Caine which never fails to help me feel stronger in the morning.

Statement of Objectives. Enough of this value feel-good stuff. I need specifics, so reminding myself of where I need to get to this quarter is great for getting some perspective. I find that a quarterly objective is great for this – far enough away to get some serious progress, but close enough that you can’t leave it until later, so reminding myself of these deadlines and milestones to hit always motivates.

Clear instructions. Finally, I need to break it down. My brain is still woozy no matter how good this pep talk is, and I need some clear instructions on what I have to do next to get going. For me, I always get going with some exercise first thing when I can because that seems to get the blood flowing to my brain, and then get into my daily routine which delivers what I need when I follow it correctly. This reminder gets me started.

For me the format doesn’t matter, audio and video are great, but the simplicity of just reading something means that I can always make that work, so I have a written version in the back of my daily journal which is always reliable.

I don’t know how I’d respond to someone running at me with a knife. I’d like to think that the protection of others and the need to eliminate danger would be enough for me to act appropriately. Like most people I hope that I will never be put in that position and am ever grateful for those who run towards danger on our behalf. I think I can learn a lot from your their values.

#WeAreNotAfraid

So how do you start your day? Do you have a morning mantra or something that really gets you kick-started? Please do share below!

This week I’m thinking a lot about pitching style. Yesterday I pitched in the finals of the disruptive pitch series in which founders pitch their businesses Dragons’ Den-style to a group of industry experts.

Having made it to the final, I spent the morning with Neil, the judge who selected me for the final and got some great feedback on our pitch and what I need to do to take it forward.

All of this reminded me just how important your pitching style is, not just for competitions like this, and not just for business, but for everyday life. It also made me realise just how difficult it is to make a really great pitch, and how a different kind of thinking is needed.

It was when Neil was briefing me on the art of pitching that I realised that whenever I meet someone, whether it’s in business, socially, at the dentist or in the gym, to some extent I need to pitch them. I don’t mean that I need to sell them something of course, but I need to make a connection with them, to find out why they should be interested in me and what we should do next.

It was only when I broke down the whole concept of the pitch to these very simple steps that I realised that these are essential for any conversation. You need to get the person you’re speaking to interested, you need to communicate whatever it is that is the subject of the communication – from a business transaction to a football score – and you need a clear next step.

What first struck me about this was how I’m often not clear myself, when I communicate with someone, what exactly it is I want to achieve in that conversation. It’s often clear enough at a big picture level: I’m “building a relationship”, “engaging about a future project” or “finding out if they’re interested in working with us”. But at a precise conversation level, am I clear enough about why they should talk to me, what we’re talking about and what the outcome should be?

Three key elements to a good pitching style

So from my coaching session, I picked out three key elements of the pitch which I need to make sure are there in every interaction.

The hook – a way to get the listener interested within the vital first few seconds when a first impression is formed

The content – the key information they need to understand whether this is something that’s interesting to them

The call to action – the clear next thing that the listener must do in order to engage with the speaker

It sounds a bit “business bore” to think of framing every conversation that I have in these terms, and that’s certainly not how I greet my family when I walk in the door! But when I thought of how to pitch the idea of doing some maths homework with me on Saturday to my nine-year-old, I found that framing it in these terms was incredibly useful – mainly because it forced me to think about the whole thing that I was pitching from her point of view, not mine.

The hook isn’t the thing that gets me interested, it’s the thing that gets her interested – in this case “hey mum, said you wanted to see if you could get faster at your fractions so that you can have more fun in maths lessons, is that right?” It went far better than I thought, and I now have a daughter who can’t wait for the next fractions session – so I’m frantically reading up to stay ahead of her…

Usually, when I read Dilbert, I give a wry smile and thank God that I don’t have to work in corporate America.

Today, though, corporate America caught up with me. In fact, it’s a disease that’s been slowly infecting all walks of life – you’ll have seen it too. Not the lack of accountability, that’s something that has been with us for a while. But the idea that accountability is something that other people have to get a grip on so that we don’t have to.

You see, if I’m responsible for getting something done and I ask someone else to help me out, it doesn’t mean that I’m off the hook, that I can just sit there and wait for them to do it. They may be massively well organised, and I never have to ask for a thing twice, but no-one’s like that all the time, so if I want to get something done, I have to keep track of it and check in with them.

It’s that simple, I write it down on a list of things that that person is handling, and then when I next see them, I can simply check that list and ask “how’s it going”.

A simple cure for a paralysing disease, plus it keeps me accountable for everything that I have decided is important.

“Writing things down”. Try it, it’s the new “handing things off to someone.”